ŠKODA UK Motorsport’s chief engineer Nicolas Roux has revealed his satisfaction following Andreas Mikkelsen’s pre-Rally San Marino test earlier this week.
Mikkelsen covered 95 kilometres during the session, part of his final preparations for this week’s Intercontinental Rally Challenge round, in hot and dusty conditions.
The test took place on two separate gravel roads south west of San Marino, near the village of Badia Tedalda. The morning’s test took place on a 2.2-kilometre section of gravel road with the afternoon’s session taking place on a 3.2-kilometre road, which allowed Mikkelsen to experiment with various differential and suspension settings.
“The test roads were not 100 per cent representative of the rally because they were more wide and fast,” said Roux. “There is also a lot of loose gravel on the surface of the stages, and to replicate this during a test is very difficult, because after a few runs the gravel has been cleaned away. This is one of the reasons why we moved to a different road in the afternoon, so we could run on loose gravel again. In the end, the test went very well.”